Recent reviews by Scifer

Remember those old sidescrolling fantasy adventure games on the Super Nintendo? Terraria is much more like those than the '2D Minecraft' people keep hailing it as. Start with nothing, then build tools, weapons, and shelter. Then the game comes into it's own, as you find yourself building a town for NPCs to live in, digging to Hell, summoning a meteorite and battling monsters out of the Cthulu mythos.

You can choose your style of combat too. Instead of wildly flailing your sword at enemies, you can blast them out of the sky with a lasergun, or set them on fire with an enchanted boomerang!

The only similarity I can see with Minecraft is the amount of digging you have to do. Get used to the sound of *pick pick pick pick*, because you're going to need a LOT of bricks if you want to build that NPC skyscraper. ;)

Terraria gets 3/5 from me.

A very different kind of strategy game, based on non-sustainable resource farming, height advantages and tactical demolition. The story is only there if you want it, presented in big ungainly paragraphs of text, like in Braid. However, the jazzy big band music adds a really nice 'booming 20s' feel to the industrialized madness!

As mentioned in several other reviews on this game, there are times when the slightly unforgiving gameplay mechanics create a stalemate; where the first person to move will ultimately lose the match. I have been observing some of the pro players of this game, who appear to have got the turn-based mechanics down to a math.

But if you're a fan of cartoony little robot characters, gramophone jazz, or just sick of hearing about global warming and dwindling rainforests, this game is for you! 3/5 from me.

A lovely little game that combines space battleship tactics ... with Chopin music. You have a short amount of time left to explore some of the wackiest scenarios this universe has to offer, such as Gangster Goldfish, Stowaway Toucans and cosmic anomalies that steal your trousers. And perhaps you can build up a formidable armada of starships along the way!

Great little random adventure to dive into if you’ve got 20 minutes or so to kill. Flotilla gets 3/5 from me.

Zombies. Zombies everywhere. And the only thing that will redeem those left alive is co-operation. Blast your way through endless hoards of the running, angry dead as a team of 4 humans, or pit your survival skills against another team of human-controlled special zombies.

The only thing that lets this game down is some of the people that play it. If you can’t stand the AI team-mates on singleplayer mode, prepare to have your entire team ragequit if they aren’t doing as well as they could be. Prepare to have the cream of the X-box fanbase run off on their own like Rambo, get beaten-to-death by every special zombie on the opposing team ... and prepare to get yelled at over an excessively boosted microphone that it’s all your fault.

Still, this brilliantly crafted game answers one of the most-asked questions amongst the battlegeeks of this world - “How would we cope in a zombie apocalypse?” L4D gets 4/5 from me.

Portal. So good, they made it FREE. If you only play one modern video game in your entire life, make sure it's this one. In terms of gamplay, imagine waking up inside HAL 9000 ... and being tested like a rat in a maze. If you're a portal-wizard like me, you'll complete it in an evening; but the experience will linger for a long time afterwards. Can hardly wait for the sequel.

This gem of a game gets 11/10 for me. And if you think that doesn't make sense ... you're not thinking with portals. ; )

A truly mindbending puzzler, based on time-travel game mechanics. Think Super Mario meets Prince of Persia, done in a beautiful coloured pastel style. Braid is a game that toys with consequence and responsibility, and like all good games – it has a story that’s only there if you WANT it. 5/5 from me.